What is it with pirates attacking North Koreans?

Once is coincidence, twice is happenstance. Three times, Mr. Bond, is enemy action.

So now we're at "happenstance" level in the Somali-pirates-attacking-North-Korean-freighters game. Seems an odd choice. If I'm looking for a rich haul of fenceable dry goods and a modern, well-maintained ship I can pull apart in the scrapyard, that North Korean flag doesn't really butter my muffins.

But those pirates seem to love 'em. And, ironically, a U.S. Navy destroyer rescued this freighter from the Somali pirates, killing a couple of them and treating the NK crew for injuries.

Apparently this rescue created "goodwill" for our nuclear negotiations in Pyongyang:

"The incident will have a positive impact as a result of the efforts by both the U.S. and North Korea to normalize their diplomatic ties," said an unidentified South Korean Foreign Ministry official quoted by the Yonhap news agency.

Mr. Hill said yesterday's talks in Beijing went smoothly and that the American inspection team was on its way to North Korea.

Note I said this is the second event like this; regular readers might remember that the first--which received no outside press, but which I blogged about here--involved a rather suspicious disappearance of a ship called the MV Sea Prince, also blamed on the pirates, but which might actually have been a ruse in which the Norks changed the name and flag of a ship in order to get a load of nuclear material in to Syria undetected.

Some jackwangle at the New York Times or the Washington Post is going to "break" that scoop wide freakin' open a month from now, and get invited on Tim Russert to blab about it.